They could see the end coming in early 2016. When Sebastian Judkovski and Yanina Rabinovich, owners of Ohh La La Patisserie, saw more than half of their regular clients laid off work in the economically hard-hit neighbourhoods of West Springs and Aspen Woods, their business dropped 40 per cent. Where once Maseratis and Ferraris pulled up to order handcrafted cakes and macarons by the dozen at their high-end patisserie, the parking lot was now empty. They knew that their luxury baking would be among the first things cut from tightened corporate and family budgets.

By the time they closed their shop in the fall of 2017, business had dropped 70 per cent from the good years that followed their 2012 opening. “We lost everything,” says Judkovski of their family-run business.

The Argentinean immigrants thought about returning to their homeland and the welcoming arms of their family. But after 15 years in Canada, this was now home, especially for daughters Avril and Emma. And in spite of their business travails, they still looked at Canada as a land of opportunity. “In Canada, you can reinvent yourself,” says Judkovski.

So they did.

Owning another retail shop was out. The brutal overnight hours of the baker combined with more hours in a shop were too much for the young family. And high-end pastries and cakes were just not selling.

So what would sell? Gluten-free baked goods.

The enterprising couple developed a plan to switch to gluten-free products made with top-notch ingredients and to focus on the wholesale market. Judkovski, a talented baker with 28 years of experience, would create over two dozen recipes for gluten-free brownies, muffins, macarons, almond cake, cookies and on and on. All the products would be prepared and baked by the couple and then packaged, frozen and shipped out to retailers. The retailers would then thaw them — it only takes 15 to 30 minutes — and set them out for sale.

The first task was finding a commercial kitchen they could call their own, a place that would have no possibility of cross-contamination with gluten. They found one at Saint Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church and the Hellenic Society of Calgary where they rented a huge and well-equipped kitchen.

Judkovski went to work on his flour, developing a mix of brown rice, white rice, tapioca and potato flours mixed with cornstarch and milk powder. Xantham gum was added as a binding agent. And then the recipe testing, one after the other, baking, perfecting, deleting ideas that didn’t work, adding others that did. The scent of fresh-baked cookies and squares wafted through the community of Spruce Cliff.

A name change was necessary, from Ohh La La Patisserie to Ohh La La Gluten Free Bakery, and then the new packaging that came with the change.

All the while, Judkovski and Rabinovich met with retailers, offering them tastings of their products. They landed spots in Community Natural Foods, Planet Organic, Amaranth, the Italian Centre Shop, Made Foods and Unimarket as well as some of the Nutter’s shops and Lethbridge’s Umami Shop. They hope to soon have their products in major grocery chains and food service operations such as corporate cafeterias.

The products themselves? Gluten-free baking is different than gluten baking. It has to be since it has no gluten to bind the ingredients and give them elasticity. So the texture is different. But different doesn’t have to mean “bad.” Certainly, there are many examples of dry, hard, bland gluten-free products around but they are getting better all the time. Ohh La La takes gluten-free to a whole new level. Using Barry Callebaut chocolate and other high-end ingredients, Judkovski has created baked goods that are equal to or better than most on the market, gluten or not. The almond cake has the fine texture of a financier, the brownies are gooey-chocolatey delights and the maple-glazed apple cake is decadent. This is simply outstanding baking.

So what’s next? Vegan baking — no eggs, no milk powder. Macarons with all-natural colourants. (The syrups used to colour macarons typically contain some artificial colourants.) Tastings in the retail outlets so customers can sample the products firsthand. And more gluten-free products as the market grows. As Judkovski says, “We want to give people what they like, what they want and what they can’t have.” And he and Rabinovich know how to do it.

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